Working Mom of Three, History Buff, Writer, World of Warcraft Addict. . .My Comments on My Crazy Life.

WOW Holidays! They can be fun and annoying all at the same time! If you take part in the main events and complete all the achievements, you are awarded the “What a Long, Strange Trip it has been” meta-achievement and a shiny new violet protodrake! I want the protodrake. I like holidays for the most part. I’ve been playing WOW for two years now, so why don’t I have one?

The first holiday that I completed was Noble Gardner. My paladin and Michael’s warrior ran around Azure Watch like mad people, trying to gather up chocolate eggs. We chose Azure Watch because of its lack of people. Two years ago, Nordrassil was a relatively low-population server, but the main areas such as Goldshire and Kharanos were still pretty packed with players. Azure Watch was pretty much a ghost town. There was little competition for eggs. Another reason for completing the achievement was the XP for doing the daily quests. We were about level 40-ish at that time, and could use all the XP we could get. We were also pumped up about finally having a title. Even though we’ve earned more titles since then, being “The Noble” just sounds, well, noble on a paladin. Don’t you agree?

The problem with WOW Holidays is that many of the achievements are designed for level 80s. When the Midsummer Event came about, I took my poor level 40-ish mage all over Kalimador and the Eastern Kingdoms, honoring Alliance Flames and Desecrating Horde Flames. She was killed time and time again as she tried to get into places she was too low level for—or, even worse, one-shotted by an offended Hordie when she desecrated their flame. Most of the other Holidays have a “villain” who must be killed at least once during the event. Oops, he’s level 80. Sorry, little baby toons, you have to wait until next year.

My first level 80 was my death knight, Melificent. (She’s the one on the banner, in case you’re wondering.) Meli was created to duo with hubby’s DK—Mythros. That man loved his DK for the longest time. I’d suggest working on our other duos, but he could smell the “finish line” and getting close to having our first 80s, so we played them for the most part and left the other toons on the back burner. When the Halloween Holiday came out last year, we were just under level 80. We were able to complete most of the Trick-or-Treat achievements, but still not big enough to go with our guildies to kill the Headless Horseman.

After that experience, we decided that by January 2011, we’d have the Violet Protodrake on our Death Knights. We were able to break 80 in late December/Early January. (Too late for the Winter Veil Achievements). We honored our Elders during the Lunar Festival, we became “Fools for Love” (And I got my prized Toxic Whelpling killing that holiday baddie), and repeated the Noble Garden Events for the Death Knights. Then, we started on the Children’s Week event. That’s when we ran into a roadblock—the infamous “School of Hard Knocks” travesty!

For those of you who don’t know, to get the School of Hard Knocks achievement, you must take an orphan child to four battlegrounds and complete a task, such as capturing a flag. It sends people who do not normally PVP out onto battlegrounds that they do not know, under-geared, unskilled, and ask them to compete with a child in tow. And die—multiple times. Take for example, The Arathi Basin Task. With the orphan in tow, you have to go to the Blacksmith Shop (middle of the battleground), beating 14 other people in your raid group and another 15 from the opposite faction to take the flag. I couldn’t do it. Michael couldn’t either. So, we did not finish the “Children’s Week” Achievements, and will have to wait until next year to try again.

During that year, we finished leveling up our other duos. Our Death Knights, with all of their achievements, sit on a shelf. I am not good at playing a Death Knight. I had trouble working that magic that’s called “rune power” to maximize my DPS. My guild-mates used to cringe when they saw my ghoul following me to raids. They nicknamed him “Timmy” after the retarded kid on “South Park.” Timmy’s the reason I never played a hunter. I’d tab on a target, thinking I had someone in this mob, and Timmy would go flying across the room to pull two mobs back to us. I lost track of how many times I had to apologize for Timmy. I’d keep him on passive and forget to send him to attack, which would hurt my DPS. I couldn’t find a happy medium. During this time, Michael got bored with his Mythros too. Michael likes playing casters and healers. His main became his warlock, and his second was his priest. However, come holiday time, we’d take the Death Knights out of mothballs and try to get the achievements because we had started them back in January.

The last holiday I participated in was Brewfest. I was able to get the Brewmaster Achievement on all three of my 80s. Then, real life intervened. I started working a second job, and Hubby started taking college classes online. Our time became limited, and we took a break from WOW. We completely missed the Halloween Event—so it will be at least another year before we can finish our long, strange trip. Now that things are calming down some in real life, we’re thinking about coming back just in time for the “Pilgrim’s Bounty” Holiday. Then again, the game has changed so much since October. Is it really worth re-specing and re-jewelling a character that we never play? In addition, for some strange reason, the Thanksgiving Achievements are not part of the Meta. They are simply optional. This might mean that poor Melificent and Timmy stay on the shelf for now. Guildies can breathe a sigh of relief.